GEI Wins 2nd Ford ‘Innovative Community Participation’ Award

SHANGHAI (Nov. 21, 2013) — Global Environmental Institute (GEI) received the Innovative Community Participation Award for our community-led grassland conservation work at Ford Motor Company’s 2013 Conservation and Environmental Grants China (CEGC) awards.

The Innovative Community Participation Award is aimed at encouraging those devoted to promoting the concepts of environmental protection deep within communities, initiating active public participation, and supporting people to develop environmentally friendly behavior patterns, to put forward innovative new ideas or projects to enable communities to contribute to a better environment.

GEI previously was awarded an ‘Protection of Natural Resources’ Award from Ford Motor Company in 2008, in recognition of its conservation efforts.

GEI Program Officer Wang Aimin (Center) receiving the award – GEI 2013

About GEI’s Conservation Work in Inner Mongolia

Started in July 2011, GEI’s Herder Community-driven Conservation Agreements Project” in Inner Mongolia’s Wulijitu helped local herders to establish a cooperative and assisted the plantation of 750 mu (50 acres) of Weeping Pea Shrub, in order to control desertification and solve winter forage problems for the cattle and sheep herders.

GEI optimized and adapted the Conservation Concession Agreements (CCA) mechanism for grassland protection by drawing on its success in implementing CCA programs in over 7,000 hectares of the Fengtongzhai Nature Reserve in Sichuan.

Effective measures were taken to address early stages of desertification, on 50 hectares of threatened grassland to reduce trends of desertification and degradation. While introducing the CCA mechanism and improving grassland conservation, GEI successfully engaged local communities to participate in conservation activities. GEI also helped diversify the communities’ economies and scale up livestock operations through capacity building, and by creating and distributing reference materials.

Based on its projects and relevant research, GEI is now assisting the Chinese government in increasing the effectiveness of a comprehensive incentive mechanism, “National Grasslands Ecological Protection Subsidies and Awards.”